Job Search
by Shyro Foxfeather
Summary: [Teen Titans] Raven looks for a job and Beast Boy stalks her...
1. Before Chapter One

Job Search

Prologue

By Shyro Foxfeather

……

Raven stared at the piece of paper that lay in front of her. A thoughtful look crossed her stoic features.

Name:

She neatly filled in her name so that it now read:

Name: Raven Roth

She paused at the next line and filled it in.

Age: 16

She stalled at the next question before shrugging and filling it in.

Last Known Occupation/Current Occupation: Super Hero

The next one threw her off.

Social Security Number:

She dug through her small black bag before she found the ancient looking piece of paper. She wrote down her number. She smirked to herself before blinking at the next, and last, question.

Areas Of Expertise:

About a dozen blank lines followed the query so she shrugged and filled in what she knew.

Machinist.

She had moved heavy machinery and such more than a dozen times by now. Given, each of those times it had been with her magic but that had to count for something, right?

Mechanic.

Yes, Cyborg had dragged her into helping fix a number of things. Though she was no mechanical genius, she could tell a wrench from a hammer. That was for sure.

Nurse.

Healing people. That was enough, right? Although, if they gave her a job as a Nurse she might blow something up. Two things you might have to deal with in that job area would be old people and young children.

Historian.

She knew she had read enough books to even surpass the most boring history teacher's field of knowledge.

Zoo Keeper.

Beast Boy was a zoo all on his own. She wondered whether or not she should write this though. Raven didn't want a job working with animals to then come home to an animal. She shrugged it off and decided to leave it.

Security Guard.

The Titans guarded things and people all the time. This wasn't much of a stretch.

Grave Keeper.

That was just a bit of Raven's repressed sense of humor. She did, after all, know of every graveyard in a ten-mile radius for no apparent reason.

Librarian.

This was a job she would not mind having. Libraries weren't exactly popular places that teemed with teenage life. The less people the less emotional static.

Researcher.

She was unsure as to what this would get her but then again books were her forte. It seemed that this was a good thing to write…

Raven stood from the table the lady had directed her to. She gracefully slipped the paper into the box and glided out the door.

Crime had been short as of late and it had been Robin's idea that she should busy herself with something. Going to the teenager job building had been a stroke of genius. She would get paid for doing whatever and then she could buy things she had real interest in.

Her plan seemed flawless… However, she had yet realized she had a 'stalker'…

……

"Dude, if she's gonna get a job then so am I!" Beast Boy announced.

Cyborg groaned from his position under the T-car, "If you invade her 'Raven Space' you'll be steppin' into dangerous territory man."

"So! She needs to open up! If she can open up to some lame Malchior dude than she can open up to us, too! I can't see how she hasn't realized this yet!" He griped as he kicked the table from his position in the swivel chair. It sent him spinning.

"Wheeee… Uh…" Beast Boy slowed down to a stop as he belatedly realized that Cyborg had said something. "…What?"

"I said do I detect a hint of jealousy?" Cyborg replied as he strode over to pick a large wrench off the iron table.

"No! And anyway, I already put in my slip just like she did!" He grinned victoriously.

"Sure, you may have filled out the slip too, but knowing your interests, I doubt you'll get the same job as her." Cyborg smirked.

Beast Boy just grinned. "See! That's the genius part! I copied her paper down to the T. Well, except for my name and stuff but still!"

Cyborg just shook his head. "You are so screwed if you get a job with her."

"I am so not! …No wait. Hm…Mmmm…" Cyborg stared at the Beast Boy as he daydreamed about…Well no one really wants to know that badly.

"You are so sick." Sighed Cyborg.

Beast Boy snapped out of his trance, "Am not! I'm perfectly healthy and capable of doing anything she can!"

"Riiiiight."

"Humph!" Beast Boy grumped as he leaned back in the chair, disgruntled by Cyborg's lack of support. "You'll see. I'll show you all that I can be a hard worker and make Raven open up to us at the same time!" he then proceeded to cackle maniacally.

"Dude…don't do that." Cyborg muttered to his idiotic friend.

…To Be Continued…

…

Disclaimer: Don't look now; the kiwis will eat your soul with their cheese plushies of doom! Beware the shoelace! Despite what information the rabid frogs may have informed you with, I do not own Teen Titans, which means we will be busy trying to take over the company running it and unclogging our chimney.

And I start yet another story. Is it even worth continuing?

This one has me so indecisive…Damnit.


	2. Chapter One

Job Search

Part 1

By Shyro Foxfeather

……

It was a fact that in practically every book or article ever written about love—be it with quill pen and ink well, pencil, typewriter, pen, mechanical pencil, computer, or the common rock—there was and will always be some line or message containing the line 'opposites attract'. This was a commonly excepted fact amongst human beings of Earth and quite a few other planets as well. Some other dimensions had grasped the meaning albeit that quite a few had no way of conveying it into words and thus the value was lost. People of Earth knew that 'good girls' wanted 'bad boys' and so on and so forth. Such things were normal and even a nine-year-old, seeing as they've been on the earth for nine years, would know these things.

Raven was not of Earth and had dwelled in a society completely obsessed with halting the demonic takeover. So in other words, there was little or no time for such articles to be written. And this was the reasoning Raven used when considering the possibilities of love, so she thought it was all rather pointless. Since she never read books or magazines about love—she would have to be rendered powerless and then promptly bound and gagged she would say—she had never fathomed the ideals of such things.

The trouble with all this was, simple and short; Beast Boy _had _read such things. It was true that he'd never admit it, but he was never very partial to the ideas of ogling women in magazines and rather tended to read the articles instead. He had all the practice he needed in gaming magazines so it wasn't all that hard. He never bought the magazines, of course, never would he do something that suicidal. He just 'borrowed' them from Starfire since she enjoyed studying up on the ways of the average teenager.

Mostly he just read them to figure out a way to win Raven over. It would be fruitless to read them if he didn't have someone he was valiantly trying to impress. He had heard many things about girls liking 'funny' guys and he had relied on that as his charm when he first met the dark girl.

It didn't work then and wouldn't work now.

This was a challenge. He _loved _challenges. Video games were what he liked to beat seeing as every time he won a challenge—and this one was of a smaller magnitude—he would receive a prize. So what if it was just Cyborg or Robin sulking or Starfire cheering him on. It was nice to feel like he was worth something once in a while. Although Raven wasn't just some _prize _or a _trophy girl_ at all. Beast Boy really felt that if he lost this challenge…

…He'd really _be _worthless after all.

……

"Mail call!" Hollered Robin as he entered the room with a sack of letters over his shoulder. "Luckily it's less than usual." He sighed gratefully.

Elfish ears perked up. "Cool." He exclaimed as he laid hanging upside down off the couch cushions. Things had been extremely boring since Cyborg had locked himself up in his workshop as he worked on some new gadget of his.

"Wonderful!" Cheered the overzealous Starfire. "Let me water my hands and I will join you." She told them as she held up her messy hands as evidence. She was making pudding again.

"Starfire, you mean 'wash my hands'." Robin corrected automatically as he handed Beast Boy a bag of his already sorted letters.

"Ah, silly me." Starfire said in reply and walked off to the bathroom although the kitchen did supply a sink.

Beast Boy flipped through his mail. It was fun receiving fan mail but most of this seemed to junk like 'sponsor this soft drink' or 'be in this magazine' or 'make a guest appearance on Jerry Springer'. The Titans had agreed when they first banded together that they would not sponsor, be in, or make any guest appearances in anything unless it was planned for some reason or another. They were superheroes not merchandising figures or risers for television ratings as Robin had elaborated on.

He paused when he came upon a fan letter. He opened it, read it, and disturbed look crossed his face. "Uh, Robin?" He said.

Robin looked up curiously. "What?"

"What do you do when you get a letter from a fan saying that she wants to lock you in her basement and feed you until you're not a stick?"

Robin blinked as he looked up from his own pile. "Oh, those? I just ignore them really."

Beast Boy nodded and tossed the letter into his 'out' pile. A new letter arose and he stared at it before ripping it open quickly. It was from that help teens find good jobs agency. He wanted to see what they had sent him to although it wouldn't help unless he knew where Raven was going to be.

The letter read as followed:

'Dear Mr. Boy,

After reading over your documents that you entered we have found a perfect job opening for you. You shall, if you chose, start at the Neko-San Downtown Library tomorrow morning at 10:00. Directions are on the back. Thank you for using the TKAM funded Teenage Job Search.'

It was surprisingly short but Beast Boy shrugged this off. 'A library? Huh…can't be that bad. I just hope Raven got this one too…' He thought to himself.

Raven walked in the living room and Beast Boy shoved the letter back into the pile quickly. Robin looked up from reading a letter from mayor—he was extremely grateful and all—and grinned. He waved her bag at her, which was surprisingly large. "Maaaail."

She frowned and took the bag from his outstretched hand. She fixed herself a cup of tea and retreated back into her room to sort through it.

……

Sitting Indian style on her bed she began to sift through the intimidating pile. She would never tell the others this but she had a nasty habit of talking to herself while she did so.

"Junk…junk…add…junk…bill…Wha-?" She snatched up the bill. "…Okay, where'd they get the idea I owned a credit card…Oh, this is Cyborg's." She placed it aside to give him later. "Junk…fan letter…" She placed that aside too for later. "Oh, this." She murmured as she carefully opened the answer to that pesky job thing.

Her dark eyes roamed the paper and this is what she read:

'Dear Ms. Roth,

After reading over your documents that you entered we have found a perfect job opening for you. You shall, if you chose, start at the Neko-San Downtown Library tomorrow morning at 11:30 as a specialized ancient text researcher. After reading over your background we think this is most befitting. Directions are on the back. Thank you for using the TKAM funded Teenage Job Search.'

She internally grinned at the job she had been placed with. It wasn't some idle idiot's job and it was something she could really enjoy. Perhaps she could get into such a business when she would have to live on her own—not that she really wanted to.

She flopped back onto her pillows. "This… will be interesting."

……

Ten o' clock sharp and not a minute later was Beast Boy at the building. He was wracked with thoughts that Raven may have not gotten the job as well and hadn't slept well at all. Which, in effect, made him wake up unexplainably early as well.

He walked into the double doors and a looked around. It was about the size of your average football field with about a dozen long tables stretched around the room. Rows of books lined almost every wall and where there weren't books there were computers. Swivel chairs littered the area and a staircase just barely visible across the room led down to a children's section.

He then noticed that a thin girl with a striped shirt and a bandanna was waving him over from the front desk and he idly wondered if she was trying to be a pirate.

"Uh…Hi…person…." He said to her.

"You're the new worker right?" She asked him in the way that someone who had downed a cupful of perky that morning would.

"Yup!" He saluted her, which just made her stare quite a bit. She blamed the fur.

"You do realize that wearing fur is wrong, right?" She asked him as she stared at his hair. To her it looked like he had a fur hide on his head.

"Duh! I'm all against stuff like that!" He exclaimed proudly.

"…Kay. Well, I could use some help over here." She told him with a raised eyebrow as she pointed to a rack of books that needed re-shelving. "Wait, would you like to know your pay?"

Beast Boy grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, that's be nice…"

"Oh, well you'll get five dollars an hour at first and then that will probably be raised in couple weeks for good work."

"Kick ass!"

"Alright, come with me!" And she yanked him back to the shelves for his training.

……

At eleven twenty three Raven walked into the coffee shop right across the street from the library. She had decided if she were to work, she'd need caffeine. It was just one of the interesting things she'd picked up from television. Besides she had some spare change.

She exited while sipping a double chocolate mocha—she'd gotten this off TV too—and walked to her new work. A bored looking girl waved her over.

"You our other new employee?" She asked tiredly.

Raven blinked. "Yeah. Did the first one do this to you?"

The girl nodded solemnly. "That kid was a pain! He knocked a shelf over on me." She paused and shook her head. "Anyway, your pay is nine fifty an hour and you work till…" She looked at the clock. "Two. Marina-san is in the back waiting for you." She pointed to a swinging door behind her. Raven shrugged the girl's attitude off although she still was slightly paranoid about the shelves.

It seemed that Azarathian libraries are extremely dangerous ones. They are about the size of Gotham and Jump combined and usually they're in remote areas like islands and forests. All this results in ponds, patches of earth, and uplifted roots throughout them (not to mention vending machines every now and again for stragglers). Raven had had an untimely experience with the shelves there when a large skyscraper piled stack of books decided to fall on her. Luckily she only suffered minor things—a bruise or two and the loss of a baby canine tooth—and the people who had been with her had promptly dashed to her rescue since she was, after all, only eight-years-old. All in all she didn't like the prospect of larges libraries or falling shelves. It just spelled pain in her mind.

She walked past the girl and pushed the door open. It let out a small creak of annoyance but otherwise was silent. The room was rather dark and musty smelling and aside from the shelves many books lay strewn about a few old looking tables. A lady with dark hair tied back in a messy ponytail was hunched over a desk and faintly Raven could hear her mumbling to herself. She was wearing a long white coat not unlike that of a common scientist and she looked no older than thirty years of age. "Uh…Hello?" Raven called out as she crossed the room via a pathway between the stacks of unlabeled books.

The lady jumped with a start and looked rather sheepish. She turned and smiled apologetically. "Sorry, I get so wrapped up in these things." She said as she motioned to the book she was reading. It looked like Korean to Raven's eyes. "I've just gotten this new book on myths from Russia, albeit it's in Korean-," Raven internally smirked, "-and I was just reading a bit for fun. I know I'm supposed to study ancient books and so on but I've just been dying to read it…" She paused and frowned. "I'm sorry, I'm Marina McMallister. You're obviously Raven right?"

Raven nodded. "I was getting tired of being idle so I applied for a job and-,"

"Yes I know." Interrupted Marina. "I was told this and I specially asked for you to be my assistant if you wanted. I was hoping it wasn't just some hoax played by some teenagers. Actually there was another kid but I didn't see him as fit for it really—to hyped up on sugar. However, I requested he work here too and-Oh I'm talking too much again, sorry."

Raven waved it off. "You make up for how much I don't talk so it's okay."

A long pause took hold of the room.

"So," Grinned the linguist, "want to help me decipher some Azarathian?"

"What?" Asked Raven with the air of someone who had just had a gallon of freezing water from the depths of the Mediterranean Sea dumped on them after it was promptly placed in the arctic for two years. "How did _you _get a hold of books from-?"

"By chance really." Marina said. "Want to see."

Raven nodded wordlessly. She had a feeling she was going to really like this job.

……

Beast Boy sighed dejectedly as he placed book after book into the colorfully painted shelves. He'd been 'demoted' to the children's area for accidentally knocking a couple shelves on some random bystanders—which happened to include Kris, the girl who was training him. To an outsider he looked like the furry blue-green embodiment of depression. Not only was Raven not here but he had also made a screw up of himself in the eyes of his fellow employees. All in all it sucked.

It was just the moment he was placing another book on the shelf—the popular children's book The Thief And The Cookie, for all you curious souls—when he heard a voice. It wasn't the voice of some heavenly angel here to guide him or that of a floating little fairy. He _knew _this voice.

He also knew that if he wanted to keep hold of what little sanity he had he would have to get out of the children's fiction area as fast as he could.

……

"So the line here means it's a negative?" Marina asked as she pointed to the paper. They were currently taking notes in the kiddy room seeing as the lighting was better—the light bulb incident upstairs wasn't Raven's fault the dark girl had said—and it was oddly deserted.

"Yes. So this line without it would be 'However, the saying goes as it would be read by those above it' or roughly that. Instead it says 'However, the saying does not go as it would be read by those above it' and in the end makes more sense." Raven informed her.

"Oh I see…" Marina-san, as she was called, continued reading.

Neither noticed a fuzzy tuft of fur-like hair, two elfin ears, and two deep green eyes peek through the stack of books. "Yes! She _is _here after all!" He silently cheered. He shot his hand up in victory and as improbable as it may seem he hit a book that was lying on top of the shelf. This book fell over the other side—the one closest to Raven and Marina—and knocked over a rolling cart of books that needed re-shelving. This cart fell over and books flew out of it violently. One such book knocked the footing for a shelf out of place, which then began to fall towards the linguist and Azarathian.

Since this is where it ends for now it must be said that; no, Raven and Marina are not killed in some gruesome bookshelf accident; yes, Beast Boy finally gets to leave the kid's area; and no, no books were harmed although a mosquito was but who's counting…

Beast Boy yelped and dodged the hordes of books that seemed to be flying every which way. In the midst of the chaos he caught glance of an amethyst colored glare being sent his way like sharpened daggers. Quickly he shifted into the form of a small lizard and high-tailed it out of there as quickly as possible.

Half-demons were not the sympathetic type when it came to the daft members of society and although Beast Boy didn't know this he would soon find it out the hard way.

…To Be Continued…

…

Disclaimer: Don't look now; the fruit bats will slay your soul with their rolls of duct tape of doom! Beware the elongated ostrich! Despite what release forms the albino cat demons may have sent to by mail of carries pigeon, I do not own Teen Titans, which means we will be busy trying not to be the meal of the flying purple alligators or any sort of unpleasant bird of poetry.

:Points Up At Disclaimer: I'm not on drugs, really. Actually I'm anti-drugs including alcohol. **Don't Do Drugs!**

I like this chapter somewhat. You all seemed to be quite interested in the plot of my pointless story so I'm updating it. I know, a lot doesn't make sense but so what. …Um…Here. Should I all my chapters be:

A – More like chapter one. Or…

B – More like chapter two.

They really are written quite differently as you may have noticed. Heh heh.

Also, these are the translations for anything Japanese in this chapter.

Marina-san basically means Ms. Marina. It could mean Ms/Mr/Mrs and so on but she's unmarried so she's a Ms.

Neko-san is Mr. Cat since usually it's used as an honorific and you basically use Mr if it's for something inanimate unless someone tells you otherwise. Neko-san just sounds cool to me. :Idiotic Grin:

Now to add ten more words so this chapter's even.


End file.
